• Bye@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Sure but all those humans need an insane amount of farmland that dwarfs the amount of land they need for housing. And that’s ignoring meat consumption.

    With a huge population, beef consumption is insane and is destroying the world.

    With a small population, it isn’t a big deal.

    • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      That amount of farmland is a lot less if you’re not raising livestock and throwing out perfectly good food because it isn’t profitable. A vegan socialist society has a much higher population ceiling than a carnist capitalist society.

      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        That’s false. We have plenty of real world examples that meat supports much much larger population than plant foods.

        • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          Yeah, in a tribal or medieval society. The math is very different in an industrialised society. The point where the equation really starts changing is when there isn’t enough space for all the animals to pasture, so instead of eating grass, the livestock are fed energy dense produce like corn grown on a different farm. Get rid of the cows and feed the corn to the people, and you’ll use a tiny fraction of the amount of land, water, and energy.

          • Aux@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Since when Scotland and New Zealand are tribal and medieval societies? Or maybe France and Italy are tribal and medieval? There’s never a point when growing crops is better than growing meat. That’s a myth peddled by the sugar industry.

            • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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              4 months ago

              Australia has roughly the same amount of land as America, and a tenth the population. The Australian meat industry is able to be less subsidized than the American meat industry because of all the extra land. If you want to talk about overpopulation, Australia is one of the last places you should be looking. It has the fourth lowest population density in the world. In America, farmers need to grow corn to feed the cows, and they need extra money from the government to afford to do that. Australia can economically afford to eat meat, but America can’t. And India sure as hell can’t.